Louisa and the Crystal Gazer (2 page)

“My point exactly,” my companion responded, turning upon me bright eyes filled with a passionate melancholy. “I feel the need for a masculine presence in my life, and would like to converse with my father. I will, with the assistance of Mrs. Agatha Percy. Please come with me to one of her sittings!”

I groaned and jammed my hands deeper into my pockets, despite the stares of several passersby; a lady did not put her hands in her pockets. She did if they were cold, I thought. Ship rigging creaked in the wind and bells chimed the start of a new watch, and I pondered Sylvia’s statement.

Mrs. Agatha D. Percy was the newest fad in Boston, one of the recently risen members of that questionable group of individuals known as “spiritists,” or mediums. One must feel a very heavy burden of ennui to wish to spend time at that dubious amusement, I thought.

“Oh, it will be such fun, Louisa. All of Boston goes!” Sylvia persisted.

“Then it must be quite crowded,” I rejoined, walking at a faster pace to try to dissuade Sylvia from this topic.

But she turned pink with enthusiasm and fairly raced about me in circles, imploring that I join her in this new activity. “Please come with me, Louy; say you will! I have an invitation for you from Mrs. Percy.” Sailors in their blue overcoats turned in our direction and grinned.

“I can think of better ways to spend time and money than sitting in the dark and watching parlor tricks. I would much rather, for instance, attend one of Signor Massimo’s musical evenings.” The signor, a famous pianist, was touring the United States from his home in Rome and had decided to winter in Boston. He was giving a series of performances—performances I could not afford, since the tickets were as much as three dollars apiece, even when they were available, which wasn’t often, as he preferred private homes and small salons.

“Mother tried to get tickets and could not. She was furious,” Sylvia said. I could understand; women with Mrs. Shattuck’s family name and wealth were not accustomed to hearing no.

“Look, there is ice in the harbor,” I said, putting my hand over my eyes to shield them from the glare.

“I will have your answer,” Sylvia persisted.

I introduced several new topics of conversation, hoping to distract Sylvia from her mission—Jenny Lind, the Wild West, a newly published travel book about France that was flying off the shelves—but each topic she cleverly rejoined and detoured back to Mrs. Percy. Jenny Lind, accompanied by her American manager, P. T. Barnum, had visited Mrs.
Percy. Mrs. Percy had published a “memoir” from a spirit who had visited her from Oklahoma. Mrs. Percy had toured France the year before and had been received by their umbrella-carrying Citizen King.

“Don’t you see?” Sylvia sighed in exasperation, pulling at my hand to prevent me from taking another step. “The spirits themselves wish you to visit her. They put those very suggestions in your mind!”

“Then they should put a plot or two in my mind,” I said, remembering the still-blank sheet of paper before which I had sat that morning at my desk. Being between stories was an unpleasant state for me, when no plot or story threaded the random thoughts of everyday imagination, no characters spoke to me in my head as I swept the parlor or stitched linens.

“They will,” Sylvia said complacently. “I hear they become quite chatty and friendly in Mrs. Percy’s parlor. You might use the scene in one of your ‘blood and thunder’ stories. Think what fun it would be to write about Mrs. Percy!”

“I am unconvinced that ‘fun’ is the correct word to describe an hour of sitting in the dark, pretending to speak with the dead,” I said.

“Spirits,” corrected Sylvia. “The dead don’t like to be called dead. Such a harsh word.”

Neither of us was yet aware of exactly how harsh that séance would become.

“I will think about it,” I promised. “But now come with me to Tremont Street, and let us look in the windows and begin to think of Christmas presents, and what we will give our families.”

“I know what Mother wishes,” said Sylvia. “A son-in-law.”

“I have an easier shopping list,” I laughed. “A ream of writing paper for Father, new Berlin wools for Auntie Bond, something frivolous for Marmee since everyone else is certain to give her sturdy handkerchiefs.” Marmee, my beloved mother, was also known as Abba, but more and more in my imagination she was Marmee, and she was already the center of a story I had yet to write but often thought about, a story about four daughters, one named Jo, and their wise, generous mother. “A pair of gloves for Anna in Syracuse, and Faber pencils for Abby.” Abby, the youngest Alcott girl, was the artist of the family.

“You’ve forgotten Lizzie,” said Sylvia.

“No, I haven’t.” Lizzie was a musician, a quiet, shy girl who asked for little and was content with all she had, which was little enough. “But what can I give a sister who deserves a grand piano, a gift out of the question? I am at a loss.”

“You’ll think of something, Louy. You always do,” Sylvia assured me.

A
FTER MY PERAMBULATION
with Sylvia I returned to my rooms and was greeted somewhat distractedly by Auntie Louisa Bond, a kindhearted woman of middle years with a long and close connection to my family who had offered room and board to her “favorite young person” while I (that favorite young person) was separated from my family.

“Oh, dear, your nose is quite red, dear Louisa,” she fussed, wiping my face with her handkerchief as if I were seven years old, not twenty-three. “Must you go walking in this cold? Your mother would be distressed.” She flitted about like a butterfly, her lace collar and cuffs flapping as she helped me off with hat and coat.

“Mother would not be distressed.” I laughed. “She believes in the power of daily exercise in all weather. Shall I help with the dinner, Auntie Bond?”

“The stew is ready whenever you are, my dear. Set a plate for yourself, because I have eaten. I have friends coming
over for a round of cards, so we will be in the front parlor.”

Auntie Bond was a good and generous soul, but with a single vice: She liked to gamble, and although it was pennies that were wagered, she turned beet red whenever she announced that her friends were coming over for a round of cards.

I thought it harmless enough; many women, especially those past an age for attending dancing parties or rowing picnics on the Charles, played cards these days, though they dreaded being gossiped about. Cakes and buns came from the bakery, the newfangled carpet sweeper made it unnecessary to spend all of Saturday taking up the rugs and beating them, and every household except the poorest had a servant or two. What were the ladies to do with their time?

Go to crystal gazers, I thought. Father would say they have too much free time when others have too little.

“I will take a tray upstairs, then, so as not to disturb you.” I gave Auntie Bond a kiss on the cheek to reassure her.

Living in rooms felt strange, for my hardworking and practical mother had always, even in the most penurious times, found a way for our family to live together under the solidified roof of that species of establishment known as home. “Rooms” signified something entirely different, something somewhat daring. I was on my own, and I awoke each morning with a strange flush of excitement.

The excitement soon turned to a less exalted emotion when my eyes beheld the pile of shirts I had agreed to sew for Reverend Ezra Gannett. The reverend was an energetic preacher, and often left the pulpit with a torn seam or ripped
buttonhole, and so his wardrobe was in constant need of renewal.

Next to my sewing basket was a pile of papers—my stories, my openings and experiments for “blood and thunder” stories about damsels in distress, evil suitors, and dark family secrets.

But my writing had come to a standstill, as it sometimes does, leaving me prey to a mood so somber as to be called despondency, for fear that the part of my imagination that created stories might never awaken again. Always it feels so. I am thankful it has never proven so.

I stitched seams long into the night, listening to the crackling of the fire and the occasional muffled burst of laughter from the downstairs parlor, where Auntie Bond and her friends played cards. I could hear their voices but not their words, and the indistinct sounds added a dreamlike quality to the winter night. The flames cast shadows about the room, and my fatigue made me see movement in dark corners, though I knew nothing moved there. How easy it would be to pretend that there was something of the supernatural in that room, where voices floated in from nowhere, where shadows danced. It was the kind of dreamy mood that allowed one to think it possible to converse with the dear departed.

As I sat over my sewing, I wondered what kind of woman would choose to take advantage of that weakness of the heart and mind and set herself up as a crystal gazer.

Mrs. Percy and her activities had filled many newspaper columns in the three months since she had taken up residence in Boston. Most of the reports were unfavorable, yet her client list grew daily.

I tried to imagine Mrs. Percy, thinking of nothing as superficial as hair color but of the state of her soul and her disposition.

Instantly, as I pushed my needle in and out of the fine linen shirts in the dim candlelight, there came a voice in my imagination. “I was poor and plain, with no accomplishments or charms of mind or person, and yet Philip loved me,” it whispered. I do not know the source of these voices, only that they lead to stories, and I follow.

And since the story was already begun, I knew I would go with Sylvia to the séance room. It would be amusing, and perhaps Mrs. Percy would inspire and help create the story begun that evening in my imagination.

Sleep came easily that night, after my two hours at my desk—I used to sleep so well, when those pages were filled!

Sylvia and I met the next day, at five o’clock in the afternoon, in front of Mrs. Agatha D. Percy’s house on Arlington Street. It was already quite dark in that late-winter afternoon and very atmospheric, with snow sliding down the sky in front of the gas streetlamps and the carriage horses in their striped blankets, their breath steaming before them. I suppose very few mediums meet with their clientele in full daylight, I thought.

“This is to be a very select group,” Sylvia said with satisfaction. “I understand it is by invitation. She does not receive just anybody.”

“Sylvia,” I said, “you sound remarkably like your mother.”

“You see, Louy?” Sylvia said. “I do need a masculine presence to bring balance to my life.”

Mrs. Percy’s home was a modest brick structure in a good
neighborhood filled with similar brick establishments. Her house showed signs of recent improvements, though the building itself was not old. The green shutters were new and designed to exclude all light when pulled shut. A brighter-colored brick on the west side showed that the little sunroom had just been added—perhaps, I thought, for unexpected entrances of “phantoms.” Broken vines and rose canes indicated some adjustment had been made to the east side as well. I decided to take careful mental notes and describe it in a letter to Mother, along with the events of the séance, for her opinion.

Sylvia rang the bell, her eyes as wide as a child’s at Christmas. A servant answered the door and showed us into a little waiting room.

The maid, a pretty girl of nineteen or so, wore an expensive white lace mantilla held in place with a garnet hatpin, rather than the usual lace cap of the parlormaid. Instead of a sensible brown frock, she wore red petticoats with a purple apron over them trimmed in glass beads. From the numerous sausage curls hanging beside her unnaturally rosy cheeks and the excessive swaying of her skirts as she walked, it was plain the girl needed a mother’s stern guidance. Here was the perfect project for Abba!

“Your name?” I asked.

“Suzie,” the girl replied saucily. “Miss Suzie Dear.”

“Indeed,” said Sylvia, studying her with interest.

“Mrs. Percy begs your patience,” said the maid with more pomp and circumstance in her voice. “She has not yet achieved the exact quietude required for summoning the spirits.”

“You mean she is behind schedule,” grumbled a man who
sat before the fire warming his hands. “Bad policy. Should never keep a crowd waiting.” He half rose and nodded in our direction. Mr. Phineas Taylor Barnum, the greatest showman on earth himself!

Who would not have recognized him, with that broad forehead, tightly curling black hair just starting to turn gray at the temples, those piercing gray eyes, and that firm chin? His image had been before the public on an almost daily basis for many years, in the papers, broadsheets, and books, including as a frontispiece in his own hugely successful autobiography published just the year before. Oh, how that book had sold! Some twenty thousand copies in just months. I admit to envy. Would I ever write anything that sold as well? (Many years later, you realize, my own
Little Women
outsold him by many hundreds of thousands, to my perpetual delight.)

But what, I wondered then, could the wealthy, prosperous Mr. Barnum want of a crystal gazer?

The famous—or should I say notorious?—showman was dressed in a dark suit and would have been indistinguishable from any number of somewhat corpulent middle-aged men of business, except that his face was so very well-known. The quickness of his gaze bespoke an extraordinarily active imagination, but there was a furtiveness in his manner, a hesitancy of movement, an unexpected sliding back and forth of the eyes, that indicated all was not well with him.

“At your service, ladies,” he said. “Mr. Phineas Barnum.” He extended his hand.

“Miss Louisa Alcott, and my friend Miss Sylvia Shattuck.” I sat on a settee opposite him.

“Alcott, Alcott,” he mused, plucking at his velvet lapels. “Is your father the philosopher Bronson Alcott?”

“He is.”

“Well, then.” Mr. Barnum screwed up his mouth and looked into the distance, then returned his gaze to me. “I am a man of quick decision. I have a proposal for him. I have heard of his ‘conversations.’ I would like to introduce events of significance, not just entertainment, to the American Museum. Would your father be interested in exhibiting there?”